Lakers guard Kobe Bryant grimaces after tearing his Achilles tendon during the final minutes of a game against the Golden State Warriors on April 12, 2013 at Staples Center. He played just 41 games over the following two seasons and the five-time NBA champion was never the same again. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill, File)

Like Camelot appearing from the mist, Lakerdom rises from the darkest age it ever knew, eight seasons of futility and ever bigger belly flops since the team won its 2010 title.

Lakers fans, spoiled by decades of greatness, were unprepared. Theirs was not only the most glamorous team in the NBA but the mightiest of the post-Bill Russell era, with 11 titles since 1970 to six for the franchise closest to them, the Bulls.

Good times were glorious, bad times short-lived. In 2010, the Lakers had been here for 49 seasons and missed the playoffs just four times. Only once had they ever missed the postseason in back-to-back seasons, 34 years before.

The dark age from 2010-2018 was the worst they had ever known. If they had been zany in the best of times, now they made fools of themselves regularly. Ownership was marked by the split between Jim and Jeanie Buss. Management made bad decisions. The young players they doted on did wacky things, like D’Angelo Russell recording and sharing Nick Young’s confessions about cheating on Iggy Azalea.

Worst, their long run of extraordinary luck turned bad with a vengeance. Things that no one could imagine going wrong did, like acquiring Chris Paul and seeing Commissioner David Stern spike the trade.

Even if all that is over, the Lakers are still paying for it. As great as LeBron James is, not even he can lead the Lakers all the way back from where they start this fall to where they would like to be next June, or some June soon.

On the other hand, that was then and this, the Lakers hope, will never be again.

2010-11 – Coming off their 2009 and 2010 titles, the Lakers awaken to the realization they’ve gotten old and slow (four starters are over 30 and all five are over 200 pounds, with small forward Metta World Peace at 6-foot-7, 260.)

The bad news arrives in a thunderclap as Dallas sweeps the two-time defending champions 4-0 in the second round of the playoffs.

2011-12 – With Phil Jackson retiring, owner Jerry Buss lets son Jim decide on a new coach, hoping to turn over power to him.

Jim chooses former Cleveland Coach Mike Brown. It’s not crazy; Golden State consultant Jerry West is reportedly high on Brown and wants the Warriors to hire him.

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The Lakers, anxious to grab Brown first, jump on him, giving him a four-year, $18 million deal … which they’ll be paying for three years after he’s gone.

Any coach would have a hard time living up to Phil. With the Lakers’ level of expectation, Brown lasts one season plus five more games.

2012-13 – With Brown axed early in the season, Jerry Buss reassumes charge of the hiring process but it doesn’t turn out well either.

Kupchak and Jim Buss ask Jackson if he wants to return a third time.

Phil is cautious but intends to accept, although he only wants to coach this last season.

Jeanie, who worships her father – and is not close to her brother – blames Jim for leading Jackson on, writing in her autobiography, “I felt like I had been stabbed in the back.”

Still, the Lakers appear to be on their way back when GM Mitch Kupchak lands Dwight Howard and Steve Nash. Of 25 ESPN experts, 21 pick them to win the Western Conference.

Instead, the Lakers finish as the No. 7 seed at 45-37. The fun-loving Howard, an upcoming free agent, is so leery of the ferocious Kobe Bryant, Dwight won’t even say polite things about hoping to stay. Nash is frequently hurt, as he will be throughout his three seasons under contract with the Lakers.

Bryant, playing brilliantly down the stretch at age 34, blows out an Achilles two weeks from the end.

The Spurs sweep them 4-0 in the first round. Howard ends his Lakers career by getting himself ejected in Game 4 and stomping off as Tim Duncan is caught on video laughing at him.

Dwight then takes a Houston Rockets offer that is $30 million less than the Lakers’ offer and leaves.
Many expected big things of the Lakers when they acquired Dwight Howard in a trade, but the big man’s stay in L.A. was short after he decided he couldn’t coexist with Kobe Bryant. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

2013-14 – Jeanie Buss, afraid of being left with no star, pushes to re-sign Kobe even before his return from his career-threatening Achilles surgery.

Kobe accepts two years at $55 million … and lasts six games before he’s lost for the season.

D’Antoni, the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time, leaves at season’s end.

During training camp, Scott is asked about 3-point shooting. Perhaps mindful of the fact that the Lakers are awful from the arc, Byron – a shooter as a player – says it’s not so important.

Oops. Three-point shooting is the essence of modern basketball. Scott is pilloried on the internet as an Old School know-nothing.

In previous coaching stints in New Jersey and New Orleans, Scott overachieved with humble rosters, but this roster is considerably more humble.

Bryant plays 35 games and is a shadow of what he had been.

Now it’s all about their young prospects … or it’s supposed to be. Instead, first-round draft pick Julius Randle breaks his leg on opening night and is lost for his rookie season.

2015-16 – The search for prospects continues, agonizingly.

The Lakers draw the No. 2 pick in 2015, but it’s a one-superstar draft. After Minnesota takes Karl-Anthony Towns, the Lakers select Ohio State freshman D’Angelo Russell, a late-blooming converted point guard.

Scott brings Russell along slowly and is torched for not starting him.

Unfortunately, D’Angelo then shows just how immature he is, recording Young talking about cheating on his pop star girlfriend, and is reportedly shunned by teammates.

Instead, the season becomes about Bryant’s farewell, a surprising outpouring of love around the NBA for a once-shunned player, capped by his memorable 60-point game against Utah.

Now the young players are on their own.
The Lakers selected D’Angelo Russell, left, with the No. 2 pick in the 2015 NBA Draft, but the young point guard and Coach Byron Scott were a bad fit from the start. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

2016-17 – Scott, another wrong man in the wrong place and time, is replaced by Luke Walton.

Young players such as Brandon Ingram and Larry Nance Jr. show promise but the story is ownership. Jeanie fires Jim, who had plotted to overthrow her in fear she would fire him if the team wasn’t in contention … as she had, indeed, vowed to do.

Jeanie also fires Kupchak. Magic Johnson takes over, intent on luring two star free agents with the two maximum salary slots that Kupchak had been saving.

For years, top free agents haven’t even considered the Lakers. With Magic’s charisma, they’re now given a chance of landing LeBron James in 2018.
In February of 2017, Lakers controlling owner Jeanie Buss followed through on something she had vowed to do and fired her brother Jim, who had plotted to overthrow her. (Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

2017-18 – Of course, before hoping to lure LeBron, the Lakers must show they’re not hopeless.

They start poorly. At 12-27, rookie Lonzo Ball’s loud-mouthed father, LaVar, goes off on Walton (“Nobody wants to play for him. I can see it. No high-fives when they come out of the game. People don’t know why they’re in the game. He’s too young.”)

Behind Ingram, Randle and rookies Kyle Kuzma and Josh Hart, the Lakers go 23-20 the rest of the way although Lonzo, struggling with injuries and his shot, is a minor factor.

James signs with the Lakers, after all, opening myriad possibilities, like landing another superstar in 2019. The glory days aren’t back yet, but after the darkest age Lakerdom ever knew, these seem fine.